Tag Archives: genre’s

When you upload music to Spotify as an artist, the service via the digital distributor an artist uses, asks what kind of genre you are in, because for an algorithm to work it needs a label to refer to. And the genres an independent artist has to pick from are Metal or Rock or Alternative Rock and a host of other ones that are not relevant if you play music with distorted guitars.

But what genre would you be, if you see yourself as progressive, with a little bit of metal, a little bit or rock, a little bit of blues, a little bit of country, a little bit of soul, a little bit of classical, a little bit of folk and a little bit of pop.

And why wouldn’t the lyrics play a part. You could sing about death and depression or you could sing about censorship and oppression or you could sing about dungeons and dragons or you could sing about history.

Seriously, look at the genre names that the labels and music writers of the past have come up with.

Metal, rock, blues, country, soul, classical, folk and pop.

If “Thrash” was a genre to select from, I would add that to the list as well.

So how would people promote all of this different music if it was just labelled “music” without any word before it like metal or pop?

Well marketeers knew that genre labels work for people. In life we more or less label everything. Our ethnicity, first name and our surname is a label we get from the start. Because if a sheet of paper doesn’t exist stating our name or birth, we obviously don’t exist according to official records.

And we keep building on labelling?

We develop labels for suburbs like that is a “good place to live vs bad place to live”, people like fat people vs skinny people to nice people vs rude people, races, schools (public vs private vs religious school), workplaces (government vs private), sporting teams and family/friends. So it’s pretty obvious that labels in music work for pushing the product. And it makes it easier for people because they don’t feel overwhelmed.

But as the article states, labels are for cans, not people. Always be curious and don’t fall into the label/categorisation trap. Keep exploring.

Gary Hoey auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne in 1988, during the search for Jake E.Lee’s replacement. We all know that Zakk Wylde got that gig. He also auditioned for Def Leppard, which ended up going to Vivian Campbell. Then he teamed up with a few LA vets in “Heavy Bones” who released one album in 1992 and when it did nothing, they broke up shortly.

Good musicians never quit. He went solo and had a hit with “Hocus Pocus” a cover of the Focus hit. This led to some chart success, some soundtrack work and a monthly column in Guitar World called “Hocus Pocus” which I found informative and helpful to my guitar playing.

Although Extreme became famous for the funk rock in the early nineties, Hoey broke it down to a teachable lesson called “Get The Funk Out” from Guitar World June 1994 issue. But the best lesson for me was “Arpeggio Acrobats” that appeared in the November 1994 which involved playing string skipping arpeggios. Since then he has more or less released an album each year.

A true warrior of the music industry and a diversified artist. He doesn’t have the world-wide recognition but he has what a lot of musicians that had world recognition wish they had. A career in the music industry.

John Axtel (guitarist) and Atom Ellis (bass) from Psychefunkapus got together in 1986 and by 1992 it was all over. Two albums came out on Atlantic. 1990’s self titled debut and “Skin” in 1991. Then it was all over.

John Axtel has been around the scene with various projects and the same for Atom Ellis. They also have shown their diversity and that is why they have been around in various bands and different genre’s.

Tommy Bolan was part of “Warlock” and then joined the solo band of “Black N Blue” vocalist Jamie St. James, which in the end became “Freight Train Jane”. “Mitch Perry” was the first choice however he was unavailable. Then Tommy Bolan auditioned and St.James had his “guitar guy”.

The band got together around 1991 as the ad for the “D’Addario” strings shows. The album “Hallucination” didn’t come out until 1994 and it did nothing.

Everyone is quick to blame “Grunge” however the decline of glam rock and hard rock bands has a lot to do with the songs and their messages just didn’t connect with the new generation of kids. For example, “You” from the album is great song musically but lame vocally. And when you compare it to another song called “You” from Candlebox, you would understand why connected and one didn’t. Tommy Bolan for all of his talent has been hit and miss. His most recent execursion was an instructional video/book out called “Metal Primer”.

This is one person that should have achieved more however for some reason didn’t.

Valentine started with Adam Holland (guitarist), Craig Pullman (keyboardist) and Gerard Zappa (bassist) in 1986. Once all the other band members joined they moved to LA and did some demos. Columbia Records came knocking only to see a record label re-shuffle put the band in a tough position which then turned out okay as their original A&R rep took the band with him to Giant Records who then released Valentine’s debut CD in 1990.

They they became Open Skyz, a new label deal with RCA eventuated and another self-titled album came out in 1993. Another label re-organisation meant no label and compounded with fatigue after almost a decade of music industry ups and downs, they called it a day.

However they have all remained in the music business and to this day continue to have a career in the music business. A new album called “Soul Salvation” came out in 2008 after a positive response to their Firefest appearance. Adam Holland is also the guitarist in the Steve Augeri Band (former Journey lead vocalist).

Blackeyed Susan had Dizzy Dean Davidson on vocals/guitar, Rick Criniti on guitar and Tony Santoro (RIP) also on guitar. Critini and Santoro both did time together in the band “Rage” while Dizzy Dean Davidson was fresh from his “Britny Fox” stint. Criniti also worked as a live keyboardist for Cinderella. This band was talented and they had pedigree, however it wasn’t to be. The band split after their label Mercury pulled the plug and stopped the touring support dollars from filtering down in late 1991. However all three have had a career in the music business that lasted decades, even Santoro until his untimely death at 40 due to a heart attack.

Tristan and Matt Prudoehl I haven’t even heard off. Not back then and not now. Probably a reason why they failed to have a music career.